Sarah Protzman Howlett

Chemical Reaction

PM Network |
June 2016

THE WAR ON CHEMICAL WARFARE ISN’T OVER YET–BUT THE END IS GETTING CLOSER. In 1997, 192 countries and territories signed the Chemical Weapons Convention treaty, which banned chemical warfare. The result of decades of diplomacy, this agreement has sparked a long succession of projects to eliminate chemical weapons, such as nerve and mustard agent and chlorine gas, from military stockpiles around the world. Wiping these weapons from the face of the earth has been an arduous process. The 13-year, US$5.3 billion chemical agent destruction plant project in Richmond, Kentucky, USA, is a case in point.